Musings on the "RamAyana" during "RamadAn"

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

 

Last evening a good friend and neighbour dropped in

for after-'iftar' tea and snacks with me. Since it is

the holy month of Ramadan here in Kuwait, when devout

Muslims observe day-long ritual fasting, all places of

business shut down after 2 or 3 PM. Non-Muslim

office-goers like my friend and myself hence have much

of the afternoons in which to do as we please. My

good neigbour, who otherwise leads a pretty hectic

life as a corporate executive, obviously found the

opportunity to spend what he likes to call "quality

time" with me. He was merely flattering me, of course,

but he did seem really happy to saunter into my house

for a leisurely chat.

 

When my neigbour walked in I was engrossed in "The

Lectures on the Ramayana" by Rt.Hon'ble Srinivasa

Sastri. This is one book I have never tired of reading

and re-reading all my life and out here in the Gulf

kingdom of Kuwait, this book has kept me good,

valuable company during many Ramadan afternoons.

 

I was in the middle of a gripping passage of Valmiki's

"yuddha-kAnda" when, quite by amazing coincidence, my

friend walked in, sat down beside me in the sofa, and

opened the conversation with latest news from

neighbouring Iraq. Fifteen American soldiers had been

killed when the helicopter they'd been travelling in

had been downed by guerilla elements in Baghdad.

 

For over 6 months now in Kuwait we have all been

following the "low intensity warfare" still raging in

Iraq, but this latest event is a real step-up in

hostilities between the Iraqi people and the occupying

American forces there.

 

My friend took out the day's newspaper he'd brought

with him and read out aloud a news-item to me:

 

"FORT CARSON, Colo., Nov. 3 — Sgt. Ernest Bucklew was

a 5-foot-3-inch coal miner's son who got laid off from

a vitamin factory, then joined the Army. For a time,

he loved it. On Sunday, Sergeant Bucklew was on his

way home from Iraq after a death in the family. Then,

in a flash, he was gone, too.

 

Sergeant Bucklew was one of the 16 soldiers killed

when a missile tore a troop transport helicopter out

of the sky. He was 33 years old, a father of two, a

supply clerk for the Third Armored Cavalry based here

and headed home for the funeral of his mother, who

died suddenly on Friday. The news was almost too much

to bear for a family already heartbroken and for a

base that seems to be paying a steep price for the

occupation in Iraq. Though not a single soldier from

Fort Carson was killed during the invasion of Iraq,

more than 20 have died since President Bush declared

an end to major combat hostilities on May 1. Four Fort

Carson soldiers were killed in Sunday's helicopter

crash alone."

 

**********

 

"How sad, how sad!" bemoaned my friend, "Imagine a

young soldier leaving the battle-front to attend his

mother's funeral, little knowing he was following upon

her heels in death!"

 

It was a tragic story, no doubt, and I wasn't

surprised that my good friend, the good soul he is,

was rather moved by it. War is indeed terrible human

drama and Death sometimes makes its appearance on

stage in the cruelest costumes…

 

**********

 

After a few silent moments of reflection upon this

latest piece of grim news from Baghdad, my friend

perceived the book in my hands. He turned to me and

exclaimed: "Oh, I can see you're reading the Ramayana!

The "yuddha-kAnda"! How appropriate for the times we

live in!"

 

"Yes, sir", I replied, "The Ramayana is good company

to keep in the desultory hours of Ramadan afternoons".

And by way of returning the compliment he'd paid me

earlier, I courteously added, "The Ramayana and your

good self, Sir, in that order, more or less, I would

say".

 

"Thank you, my friend", said my neighbour rather

pleased that I should speak of the Ramayana and him in

the same breath. "But tell me", he continued making

himself comfortable on my sofa, "from the standpoint

of our great 'Ramayana', what should we make of all

that's happening in Iraq today? All this guerilla war,

death of so many young soldiers, innocent civilians,

UN workers, Red Cross workers… All this bloodshed,

mayhem and tragedy, day after day, across the Kuwaiti

border… How unfortunate."

 

My friend's question immediately triggered a chain of

sombre thoughts in both of us and we found ourselves

descending together into a rather pensive mood. And

soon enough, it became the main subject of our

rambling but good neighbourly chat the rest of that

cool, breezy evening.

 

Here is a gist of our joint musings on the Ramayana

inspired by one quiet afternoon in Kuwait during the

Muslim month of holy Ramadan circa 2003...

 

*************

 

** The Ramayana is not a work of religious scripture

alone. It can serve as a very useful manual of

military ethics and political strategy too. The story

of Rama, the Warrior Prince, is primarily a story

about the military class --- viz. the "kshatriyas" of

ancient times. Rama was often called "raNa-veera",

"raghuveera", "raNa-pungava", "raNa-priya"…. These

names all have a military ring chiefly meant to attest

to Rama's military prowess, his love of the martial

life and the honourable traditions of the battlefield.

Even setting aside all purely religious or

theological themes abounding in it, the Ramayana would

be a rich source of military wisdom and political

insight for a military general or strategist of even

the modern times.

 

** The "yuddha-kAnda" of Valmiki's Ramayana carries a

simple but invaluable lesson for military victors:

"Once the battle has been won, do not delay, on any

account, your withdrawal from the field."

 

No sooner had the battle of Lanka ended than Rama

de-mobilized his forces and pulled out completely from

the scene. He did not lose a single moment. If Rama

had wanted otherwise, he could indeed easily have

annexed Lanka to the IkshvAku kingdom. Ayodhya's

hegemony could easily have been extended to Lanka if

only Rama had chosen to appoint Vibheeshana as mere

Regent rather than anoint him as Emperor of Lanka.

"Ram-rAjya" -- or 'Pax Ramana', we might say -- could

then have been extended across virtually the whole of

India, from Kosala to Lanka.

 

** Rama's mission in Lanka never expressly strayed

beyond the one and sole principal one: To rescue Sita.

Other goals such as (i) the "disarmament of the evil

regime" of Ravana or (ii) "effecting a regime-change"

by replacing Ravana with Vibheeshana or (iii)

"delivering the people of Lanka from the clutches of

evil and into an era of peace and prosperity" etc.

etc. were all incidental to him and never part of

Rama's main agenda.

 

Rama thus showed us how military means can secure only

military ends, and never political goals. A confusion

of one with the other always ends in disaster (such as

the one we see today in Iraq).

 

** We see Rama truly excelling as a military general

in the diligent and uncompromising way he went about

gathering incontrovertible military intelligence

before waging actual war. He did not rush into

military offensive based on intelligence that probably

could be even least suspected of being poor,

inaccurate or less than 100% reliable. (Contrast this

with the quality of intelligence on Iraq and Saddam

Hussain that we now learn the CIA had been feeding to

the President of the USA just prior to the war).

 

The first report (FIR- first intelligence report) Rama

got about the abduction of Sita by Ravana was from the

dying-statement of the old bird, Jatayu. The statement

made by a dying person is considered to be absolute

truth even in a modern court of law. The identity of

Ravana as the guilty villain was thus proved beyond a

shadow of doubt or question on the strength of

Jatayu's statement alone. No one would have faulted

Rama if he had immediately decided, then and there, to

march upon Lanka and launch a pre-emptive strike

against Ravana -- say, a "brahma-astra" strike that

might have quickly "decapitated" Lanka and also have

had the desired effect of "shock and awe" upon the

whole watching world. No one could have blamed Rama

for an unwarranted and excessively aggressive attack.

(The poet Valmiki might perhaps have even penned a few

more excellent stanzas in the Ramayana hailing Rama's

valour -- his "parAkramam" or "raNa-veeratvam" -- in

unleashing such a blazing blitzkrieg! We might add

here also that, purely in terms of moral

outrageousness, the abduction of Sita and the 9/11

incident of New York 2001 are close equivalents and

hence, under proper circumstances, would certainly

both deserve a smashing blow). And such an attack

would not have been impossible to accomplish too for

the Ayodhya Brothers since they'd pulled off a similar

feat (in the "arAnya-kAnda") against Khara, the

rakshasa-chieftain of DandakAranya, and 14000 of his

combatants!

 

Tempting as we imagine it might have been thus for

Rama to attack Ravana immediately, we see how

self-restrained and careful he was in military

calculations. The process by which (in the

"kishkida-kAnda"), Rama was able to build a "coalition

of the willing" against Ravana, was infuriatingly slow

and often frustratingly painstaking. The alliance with

Sugriva, so crucial for military success, was not

fashioned in a day; it took its own grindingly sweet

time to form but then Rama was never impatient. In the

meanwhile, we see how Rama gathered more and more

valuable intelligence required for the quick and clean

military success that was to follow. Much information

about Ravana and Lanka was gathered from all possible

intelligence sources -- from the bears and monkeys of

Kishkinda, from rivers and streams like the Godavari,

from Vali, from Sugriva, from other agents like Angada

and Jambavan --- Rama spared no effort in obtaining

even the minutest details about the land and landscape

of Lanka.

 

Even after gathering so much intelligence, we see that

the top-notch military general in Rama remained

dissatisfied. The information Sugriva and others had

furnished him was no doubt invaluable but it was still

less than 100% confirmation. Rama hesitated to attack.

It was only after Hanuman had been dispatched to Lanka

on a secret reconnaissance mission and had returned

with 100% confirmation that Sita was alive and also

that ground-realities inside Lanka were ripe for

attack, that Rama finally made up his mind about the

timing of declaring war.

 

All this shows what a careful and calculating military

strategist Rama was --- he was loath to be rushing and

blundering into a massive military engagement without

having first examined every little detail of every

possible aspect of it... and being fully satisfied

about it all.

 

(If President Bush had been a student of the Ramayana,

he might have profited greatly from studying the

character of its hero! And if he had also learnt any

lessons from the effort, who knows, he might even have

spotted the poor quality of intelligence his National

Security and other advisers on Iraq were feeding him!)

 

** After the War had been won, Rama was wise enough to

leave Lanka to the 'rAkshAsa-s'. In the name of some

grand, highfalutin purpose -- such as

"nation-building" or "bringing freedom and

civilization to a nation that had been terrorized by a

tyrant" such as Ravana, for example -- Rama did not

try and seek to impose benevolent "rAm-rAjya" on the

native subjects of a 'rAkshasa' kingdom. Each to his

own ways and destiny, was Rama's principle in the

politics of nationhood. There was great wisdom in what

Rama did for he showed us clearly that while military

generals can make war they can never make nations.

 

** Rama's foresight and grasp of politics also were

astute. Knowing fully well that the political

repercussions of military invasion are usually very

messy, he astutely chose to settle questions of

statecraft first before embarking upon military

campaign. (Not the other way around as we see is

happening now in Iraq). Rama made sure to first

install Vibheeshana as the successor to Ravana even

before the latter was actually ousted out of power and

even long before the single shot was fired in the

decisive battle for Lanka.

 

By symbolically crowning Vibheeshana then as

Emperor-in-waiting of Lanka, Rama took the politically

sagacious and brilliantly conceived step of

pre-empting any vacuum or struggle developing in the

power-corridors of Lanka in the wake of Ravana's

elimination. All of Lanka knew exactly who would be

taking over the reins of power once their present

ruler was gone. It became settled fact and people

accepted it as 'fait accompli'. We must not forget

here that neighbouring states such as those belonging

to Sugriva and others too might have secretly eyed

Lankan territory, if they had wanted to, as easy

picking in the spoils of War. They would have seen it

as rightful recompense due to them for all the trouble

they went to for the sake of Rama in the War. But

Rama's action in putting Vibheeshana firmly in the

saddle of power, even before the war-bugles began to

blow shows, nipped all such possible manipulations and

calculations in the bud. What a master indeed Rama was

in the delicate art of political and 'regime-change'

management!

 

** All in all, we can say that the Ramayana and the

story of Rama is a valuable document of military

history too, besides being a work of scripture and

religious philosophy. It is a wonderful treatise on

martial theory, on the conduct of military campaigns,

the strategy of military engagements, on how to plan

and how to execute an invasion, and finally, on how to

create the right political circumstances that lead to

and may follow a major war of invasion.

 

***********

 

Who amongst us can dare say that our ancient

scriptures like the "itihAsA-s" or "purANa-s" are

irrelevant for our present times?

 

Happy Ramadan, Happy Ramayana reading!

 

Thanks and regards,

 

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

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